{"id":207,"date":"2008-08-31T12:31:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T12:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html"},"modified":"2008-08-31T12:31:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T12:31:26","slug":"did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html","title":{"rendered":"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For those who believe that God changes the weather to shape events, it might have seemed that He was favoring the Democrats when He ignored the prayer requests of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/more-high-jinks-from-those-jok.html\">those who beseeched him to rain on Barack Obama&#8217;s Invesco field speech.   <\/a><br \/>\nAt first, religious progressives saw Hurricane Gustav as <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/karma-and-the-christian-right.html#more\">a second Democratic endorsement, <\/a>forcing a delay in the convention and reminding the world of one of George W. Bush&#8217;s greatest failures.<br \/>\nBut no! As soon as I heard that Bush was cancelling his appearance at the  convention, the Lord&#8217;s mysterious ways became clear.  I&#8217;m sure McCain really didn&#8217;t want Bush to appear but couldn&#8217;t be so unpatriotic as to not invite the president. Now McCain gets to have less Bush at the convention, without seeming rude.<br \/>\nHe works in mysterious ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For those who believe that God changes the weather to shape events, it might have seemed that He was favoring the Democrats when He ignored the prayer requests of those who beseeched him to rain on Barack Obama&#8217;s Invesco field speech. At first, religious progressives saw Hurricane Gustav as a second Democratic endorsement, forcing a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans? - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans? - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For those who believe that God changes the weather to shape events, it might have seemed that He was favoring the Democrats when He ignored the prayer requests of those who beseeched him to rain on Barack Obama&#8217;s Invesco field speech. At first, religious progressives saw Hurricane Gustav as a second Democratic endorsement, forcing a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-31T12:31:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans? - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans? - Steven Waldman","og_description":"For those who believe that God changes the weather to shape events, it might have seemed that He was favoring the Democrats when He ignored the prayer requests of those who beseeched him to rain on Barack Obama&#8217;s Invesco field speech. At first, religious progressives saw Hurricane Gustav as a second Democratic endorsement, forcing a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-08-31T12:31:26+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html","name":"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans? - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-31T12:31:26+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-31T12:31:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/did-god-send-gustav-to-help-th.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Did God Send Gustav to Help The Democrats or the Republicans?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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